


Warriors

by bigboobedcanuck



Category: Bourne Legacy (2012)
Genre: Desert Island, F/M, First Time, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-21
Updated: 2012-08-21
Packaged: 2017-11-12 13:53:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,595
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/491783
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bigboobedcanuck/pseuds/bigboobedcanuck
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post-movie: Marta and Aaron get lost for a while. </p><p>  <i>She’s witnessed Aaron shoot people, beat people and snap their necks like they were nothing more than a wishbone at Thanksgiving dinner. Yet as he wakes her from another nightmare, he is only gentle and patient, caressing her hair as he murmurs that everything is all right.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Warriors

She’s witnessed Aaron shoot people, beat people and snap their necks like they were nothing more than a wishbone at Thanksgiving dinner. Yet as he wakes her from another nightmare, he is only gentle and patient, caressing her hair as he murmurs that everything is all right. That it’s over.

But of course it will never be over.

As Marta blinks and takes in the dark shapes of their little beach hut, she knows it’s all real. This is somehow her life, and she feels less like an imposter every day. She’s curled on her side in a tense knot, and from behind, Aaron’s breath flits across her neck as she unclenches. The hut only came with one bed, little more than a padded mat on the wooden floor, but there is always a respectable distance between them.

Each night Marta waits for Aaron to cross it, but there's only the chaste brush of his lips on her cheek as he tells her to go back to sleep.

*

In the mornings they wake with the sun and he teaches her another way to maim or kill. Marta never knew there were so many possibilities. She’s never been so fit, and once in a while as they race across the sand doing wind sprints, she thinks back to boot camp on Saturday morning at the gym. She didn’t make it often, and never went for lattes after class because she went back to the lab instead.

But those kinds of thoughts never stay for long because Aaron is there, urging her ever onward, faster, faster, faster.

*

The water is a brilliant blue under a clear, bright sky, and she thinks it might be paradise, despite everything. There are only a dozen other huts on their little island, all hidden by thick palm trees and overgrown jungle. They’re off the coast of Thailand, and Marta hasn’t seen anyone else in three months but Aaron and a little boy who must live down the beach and occasionally wanders over to smile shyly and play tic-tac-toe in the sand.

In the closest town on the mainland, she’d remained hidden from sight, sweating for hours in the back of the rusty old van they’d picked up in Cambodia. Aaron had explained that the two of them together were much more recognizable than he was alone, and naturally he was right. They can’t be spotted here. They need to be lost.

When he’d returned to load their packs — and Marta, covered with a musty old blanket — into the dented motorboat, he brought a bottle of cold water and peered at her anxiously as she tried to smile. The blanket was oppressive and rough, but she could hear the steady thump of Aaron’s heartbeat beneath her ear as he lowered her carefully into the boat.

Once they were far out on the water and he said it was okay, Marta sat up to breathe in the salty air. As the sun sank below the horizon, she’d trailed one hand into the sea and craned her neck to see the stars twinkle into view.

*

The palm tree’s bark is rough and her nails are splintering. Sweat drips into Marta’s eyes, her thighs aching where she wraps her legs around the trunk. Her jeans are damp and clinging, T-shirt bunched up over her stomach. She’s climbed high enough that when a breeze blows up and the tree sways, her breath lodges in her throat, heart hammering.

“It’s okay.” Too far below on the sand, Aaron is calm and confident.

Marta doesn’t look down. “I can’t make it.”

“You just have to get one leaf. You can do it.”

She stretches her arm up, fingers grasping. “I can’t.”

“You’re a warrior.”

She huffs. “Stop saying that.”

“Who took out that agent in Manila?”

The screech of rubber and metal echo in her mind. She swallows, wishing she had water. “I did.”

“You’re a warrior,” he repeats.

Marta glances up at the tree’s impossibly high leaves. “But…”

“I won’t let you fall.”

With a deep breath, she commands her aching muscles to obey, and inches closer.

*

It’s nearly dusk when he emerges from the sea, smiling to himself at something in his hand. Marta glances up from the fish she’s gutting by the fire pit dug into the sand. “What’s that?”

Aaron holds out the small shell, a perfect coil of purple and dusty pink. “I thought you might like it.”

She takes it carefully from his damp palm, her fingertips skimming over the patch of skin that should have scarred years ago but didn’t. “I do. Thank you.”

It’s these little kindnesses the chems and Outcome and the CIA could never take away.

*

Every couple of weeks Aaron takes the boat to the mainland for supplies, the ten-horsepower motor making it a long trip. While he’s gone, Marta practices loading and reloading their guns, over and over until she hears the tell-tale _put-put-put_. When Aaron is close enough that she can see him raise his left arm, she loads the guns a last time and breathes again.

*

When the days are at their hottest, they sit in the shade of their hut on that old blanket, sipping water and eating mangoes purchased from the boy down the beach. Aaron bends over the pad of paper, intent as his pencil scratches away at the algebra or calculus or logic problems Marta creates.

Although she assures him it worked — he viraled out and his brain function is locked in, because he would have degraded long before this — Aaron is insistent that she drill him with anything she can think of to test him.

One day when he’d gotten hung up on a physics puzzle, he tore through the paper with his pencil, jaw clenched. Breath erratic, he closed his eyes, face gone pale. Her own pulse racing, Marta reached over and eased the pencil from his grip. She tapped it against the pad near the top. “Go back and take another look at this formula.”

Soon enough Aaron realized his mistake and finished the puzzle, breathing easily once more. He shook his head. “Sorry, Doc. It’s just…you’ll tell me, right? If I start to slip?”

Marta only smiled. “You’re a warrior.”

On this day, he breezes through the problems and tells her to make them harder tomorrow, giving her a friendly nudge with his elbow. He licks the mango juice from his fingers, sucking each one slowly into his mouth in turn. Marta leans her head back against the hut and pretends to doze off, her heart beating faster.

*

The first time she’s able to genuinely catch Aaron off balance and tumble him to the sand, Marta straddles his hips and thrusts her arms into the air. “Victorious!”

“You’re supposed to finish me off with a blow to the windpipe, not celebrate.” Aaron is trying to be stern, but can’t keep the smile from his lips.

She makes her hand a blade and whips it down at his neck, stopping just short. “There. Gotcha.”

With one swift movement Aaron has her on her back, arms over her head, one wrist pinned down in each hand. “Okay, get out of this one.”

The weight of his body on top of her is familiar now after all the days and weeks and months of training. She struggles against him until they’re both covered in sand and her lungs are burning, blood racing hot in her veins. 

*

It’s his dream this time.

Marta blinks in the faint light just before dawn, listening. Aaron moans again, little more than a whimper, and she rolls over to place her palm on his bare chest, shaking him slightly. “Aaron. It’s all right. Wake up.”

With a gasp, he jerks and opens his eyes, gripping her hand painfully.

“Shh. It’s over.”

His gaze is zeroed in on her face, and he releases her hand, reaching up to cup her cheek. He seems to want to say something, but nothing comes out. He only gulps in air, his palm warm on her skin, eyes searching.

Marta’s heart skips a beat. “Go back to sleep.”

Aaron nods, and drops his hand. Before he can move away, she tugs him close. He hesitates before resting his head on her chest, arm heavy across her waist. He’s asleep again in minutes. Marta listens to the waves and Aaron’s gentle snores as the birds wake.

*

Her shriek is still echoing when Aaron bursts into the hut, brandishing a dagger. His eyes sweep the room, then behind him and back at her. His brow furrows, and Marta points to the ceiling in the far corner.

Aaron exhales. “The big ones aren’t poisonous, remember?”

“I don’t care. Get it out!” Marta’s always prided herself on being independent. On not being one of those women who need a man to change a tire or fix a leaky pipe — or kill a spider. But the spiders in Maryland didn’t look like _this_.

Aaron’s laughing now. “But I’ve been thinking we should get a pet. Look, it’s already right at home. Poor spider just wants some company.”

“That is not a spider — it’s a Shetland pony with eight legs!”

“Aww, look. It’s coming closer. It likes you!”

Heart thumping, breathing shallow, Marta backs away as the creature scuttles across the thatched ceiling. She’s handled a lot since the day she went to work and dodged her first bullets. But as rational as she always tries to be, this? This she cannot handle.

Aaron goes on. “Spiders do make great pets, you know. They kill all the bugs and—”

Tears prickle her eyes. “ _Please_ , Aaron.”

The dagger hurls through the air, skewing the spider perfectly. Without another word, Aaron takes it outside to finish it off as Marta pants, sweat beading on her brow. When Aaron returns, frowning, he reaches for her, hugging her easily. As he rubs her back, she leans into him gratefully.

“Hey, I’m sorry.”

Marta feels so very foolish. “No, no. I was being silly.”

“I should have known it wasn’t funny.”

She lifts her head from his shoulder, and he swipes gently at her cheek with his thumb. Marta smiles. “My hero.” Then she kisses him, a simple press of their lips.

And this is the way it’s always been between them — something that should be hopelessly, irrevocably complicated is just…simple in the end.

Aaron’s arms tighten around her, his eyes gone dark, and the coiled desire deep in Marta’s belly strikes. She kisses him again, hands already scrabbling at his T-shirt. His tongue dives into her mouth as he groans something that might be her name.

He’s naked first, and Marta rips the sarong from around her hips, yanking her tank top over her head as she stumbles back onto their bed, pulling him down with her. His mouth latches onto one of her nipples, and she arches up, the sparks flaring across her skin and down her spine. Still kissing and sucking, he glances up at her and she nods, only able to gasp out, “Good. _Good_.” 

Teasing her nipples with his mouth, Aaron caresses her stomach, fingers dipping down to the edge of her underwear but no farther. He lifts his head, watching her intently, his chest rising and falling rapidly. She can feel his erection against her hip, and shifts her leg, rubbing against it.

Aaron’s eyelids flutter, his breath ragged. “Doc…” 

As she shimmies out of her underwear, kissing Aaron, inhaling him, Marta realizes they don’t have any condoms. Most of her brain is screaming that she doesn't care, that she wants him hot and hard inside her and nothing else matters.

He’s already sliding down, spreading her legs and dipping his head to press open-mouthed kisses to the insides of her thighs. He stops and meets her gaze, and the desire in his eyes makes her stomach flutter. She tangles her fingers in his hair. “ _Yes, yes, yes_.”

Aaron’s name is a moan on her lips as he does things with his mouth and tongue she hadn’t known were possible. When she comes with a cry, the pleasure crashing over her from inside out, he laps it up, still teasing and touching as she shivers through the aftershocks.

She tugs him upward, tasting herself on his tongue. He’s so hard against her stomach, and she snakes a hand between them, wrapping it around Aaron’s leaking cock. He groans as Marta strokes him, thrusting his hips into her grasp. He rests his weight on his hands on either side of her, leaning down to whisper in her ear, breath hot.

“Next time I’m going to be inside you.”

He’s thick and powerful in her hand, and Marta moans at the thought, feeling another rush of wetness, her clit throbbing. She strokes harder and then he’s coming, gasping and jerking, arms wobbly even though he can do a hundred push-ups without so much as a tremor. He collapses on top of her, their skin sticky between them, but she doesn’t care. 

They kiss softly, slowly, and fall asleep in a tangle of limbs. 

By all rights it should be awkward in the morning. Even with Andrew, Marta was only comfortable being naked in the dark. But when she wakes to find Aaron watching her, his fingertips skimming over her skin, she feels boneless and safe. She smiles. “So, did Outcome teach you how to do that?”

He barks with laughter, face flushing as he turns his head. “No.” Eyes on the ceiling, he shrugs. “Kenneth used to watch a lot of porn.”

She’s struck by a pang for the boy he used to be, yet can’t stop the burst of pride for the man he’s become. When the guilt quickly follows, he must see something in her expression, because he rolls on top of her and presses kisses to her face until everything else falls away.

*

In the days since he returned from the mainland with enough boxes of condoms to make Marta blush, training has become little more than foreplay. She climbs the palm tree faster than ever before, knowing that when she returns to the ground, Aaron will take her up against it.

The rain starts, and they spend hours in the hut, water dripping onto their flesh through the roof. As she rides him, Aaron grasps her hips, fingers digging in as they strive together. Sometimes he leaves bruises, which horrified him at first. When she pointed out that he bruised her all the time in training, he insisted it was different. Even though Marta assures him she likes it, afterwards he still tenderly kisses the marks he leaves.

A crack of thunder makes them both jolt, disrupting their rhythm. Laughing, Marta leans down and their tongues wind together. When she straightens back up, rolling her hips, he arches into her with a groan. Reaching up, he traces her lips with his fingertip. “You know we have to leave soon.”

Thunder booms again, and lightning illuminates the world for an instant. “But not today,” Marta says.

“Not today.”

*

In Hong Kong, Aaron gives Marta half the money to sew into her new jacket. She slips the round, purple shell in near the seam and closes the hole with careful stitches that make her think of her mother, gone long before Marta was reborn. When she puts her hand in her pocket, she can feel the little bump the shell makes, hidden from sight.

Aaron reaches for her and she's there, threading their fingers together as they disappear into the crowd.

_fin_


End file.
